Ch.7 Strike Power
The newsies were a gloomy bunch with angry or worried faces and they were all crowding around Jack. He sat in the center of them with Les by his side. Jack had a look of extreme concentration on his face and the others were waiting with baited breath. " If we don't sell papes then no one sells papes." David piped up, " What like a strike?" The idea spread quickly and it made the boys feel that things weren't so hopeless. I wasn't so sure about striking. How was I going to make money if we went on strike? I supposed that I could find different work, but I rather liked the job and the company. David had misgivings too because he took Jack aside for a quick conference. However neither he nor the others wanted to give up the fight to win their rights. The whole matter made me quite uneasy. We were going up against very powerful people who didn't care if we lived or died. Copper, who was still by my side, put a hand on my shoulders and said something in support of the strike. When I didn't say anything in return he looked at me. " Say you alright?" I nodded but Copper didn't believe me. He tried to lead me away so we could sit down some where but I pulled away. I was a newsie just like the rest of the boys and if they were striking then so was I. Pushing through the crowd I made my way up to where Jack, David, and Les were standing. I wanted to voice some of my worries to David; he would understand. I pulled on his arm to get his attention but before I could actually talk to him the boys started cheering. He wouldn't be able to hear a word I said. Jack climbed up the billboard where the headlines are posted and wrote STRIKE really big in chalk. Everyone was still cheering when Jack pushed his way back to David and me. Silence ensued when Jack made to speak again. He and David agreed that what we needed were ambassadors, to let the other newsies know about our strike. Jack assigned different newsies to different cities. He yelled, " Who wants Brooklyn?" Not one soul raised their hand, in fact most of them avoided eye contact with him. " You guys afraid a Brooklyn?" One of the younger boy named Boots yelled back, " We ain't afraid a Brooklyn its just Spot Conlon makes us a bit nervous." Turning my head I saw that no one was going to take Brooklyn so I raised my hand. " I'll go!" I called out. I'd been there before and it wasn't that bad. I figured that I could return the stick Spot had given me. It was really a pain to carry around. " Good, I'll go and David will come too", he said. There was more cheering so I missed what David said to Jack next. Then before I knew what was going on Jack had grabbed Les and me and dragged us towards a fancy building, muttering something about " softening him up."
Authors Note- (Next chapter someone new is going to show up. It'll be good. Hold on for one more chapter. I hope you like the story so far.)